St Ferris of Wheel
by Meredith T. Tasaki
Summary: For the sgaflashfic cake or death challenge. Their fate rests on their ability to bake? Teyla said, a look of abject horror coloring her face.


St. Ferris of Wheel

Rating: PG, gen

Summary: "Their fate rests on their ability to bake?" Teyla said, a look of abject horror coloring her face.

Notes: At the moment I have two responses for the "cake or death" challenge. This is because the first one I wrote was very... "or death". There was cake, but it was very, very or death. This one has more cake. And no death whatsoever. It also doesn't scare the living hell out of me like the other one, which is totally a bonus.

Whose-Line points to anyone who can spot the Calvin and Hobbes quote! (It may be because I read so much of that comic in my formative years that I have so little difficulty dealing with McKay...)

-

"Please," said Teyla (again), "we didn't _know_ that only women were allowed in the temple."

"We didn't even know the damn thing _was_ a temple," McKay muttered, despite Sheppard and Ronon's best efforts to stop him from saying anything ever again. "A cave and some sticks, oh, that's _really_ obvious. What is it in this galaxy that inhibits the development of the concept of 'signs'?"

"Ignorance is no excuse," the priestess snapped. "The temple of Festya is a sacred place; no man may enter the virgin's temple."

"But they didn't mean it," Teyla tried. "Would not a merciful goddess be willing to forgive this?"

"It is not--" The priestess paused, a thoughtful look coming onto her face. "Well, they did only penetrate the outer boundaries... Perhaps, if their intentions were truly pure, the goddess might forgive them."

"Oh, our intentions were perfectly honorable, we promise," Sheppard assured her.

"I'll bet you've used _that_ one a lot."

"McKay, what's the rule?"

The scientist sighed. "No talking while you're trying to explain violations of important social mores, yes, yes, but--"

The priestess clapped her hands. "All right, then let it be decreed: the strangers shall undergo Festya's test. If they pass, it shall be accepted that the goddess has forgiven them their transgression. If they fail, they shall die."

The men exchanged nervous glances. "And what exactly is this test?" Sheppard asked warily.

"Festya is the goddess of the hearth. If she allows you to properly bake a sacred Yumo cake, it will be clear that you have not provoked her disfavor." She brought her staff down on the ground decisively. "The acolytes will give you the recipe. You have two hours."

No one moved for a moment. Then, "Their fate rests on their ability to bake?" Teyla said, a look of abject horror coloring her face.

"Their fate is in the hands of my goddess," said the priestess, and turned away.

"Well," Teyla said, putting on a warm smile. "I'm sure you will do perfectly well. Baking is not difficult. Yes, you will be fine."

The other three stared at her with varying looks of incredulity.

"I will escort you to the hearth-fire," said an acolyte, tugging on Sheppard's sleeve.

"Good luck!" called Teyla, waving cheerfully in a way that did not at all disguise the fact that she was wondering desperately what she could possibly say to Elizabeth.

-

"All right," said McKay, "let's approach this logically."

"If you want me to kill you now so you can avoid the rush," said Ronon, "I just wanted to let you know I'm perfectly okay with that."

"Yes, I am well aware of your standing offer. Who here has ever actually cooked anything?"

Ronon and Sheppard raised their hands.

"Besides dead animals," McKay clarified.

Ronon's hand went down.

"Canned soup, waffles, TV dinners, and anything else that doesn't require ingredients don't count either."

"Potato salad?"

"No."

Sheppard lowered his hand. "So if none of us have ever cooked--"

"Technically speaking, that isn't entirely true."

"You've cooked."

"Technically, yes." McKay fidgeted slightly.

"I would've thought you were always too busy with physics for cooking."

"Well, I wasn't always _allowed_ to do physics, and it's a very long story but I really ought to be able to follow a simple recipe."

Sheppard showed him the scroll the recipe was written on again. It was easily two feet long.

"All right, maybe it's not that simple, but with our lives potentially riding on this, I really do think we'll find some way to manage it."

Sheppard frowned. "Hey, was this entire cooking spiel just an excuse for you to take charge of this thing?"

"In the past ten seconds, have you learned how to cook?"

"...What?"

"Then does it matter?"

"Fine, you control freak, you get to tell us what to do. Just--"

"'Control freak' is just what lazy, slipshod workers call anyone who cares enough to do something right, and--"

"Am I in the presence of their king? Should I kneel?"

"You remember we have a two hour time limit," said Ronon, "right?"

"Then let's get going." McKay grabbed the recipe and began to read. "Oh, essentially it's a simple buttercake recipe, this shouldn't be too bad. Make yourself useful and go find a bowl..."

-

"Huh," said Ronon. "That looks edible."

McKay rolled his eyes. "Thank you for the incredible confidence you have obviously placed in me. I will do my best to live up to your high expectations." He consulted the recipe. "Right-- now once these cool, we're going to have to ice them. And-- uh."

"'Uh'?" Sheppard said, eyes narrowing. "I don't like the sound of that."

"We're supposed to decorate it with a symbol pleasing to the goddess. Does anyone remember what the symbols of the goddess were?"

"I don't know," said Sheppard, "they wouldn't let us in the temple to see. How the hell are we supposed to know that?!"

"I don't know," said McKay, "I suppose we'll just have to put something on there and hope it isn't this culture's symbol for 'last night I slept with your mother'. Incidentally, you two are going to have to deal with the icing."

"What? Why?"

"Orange extract. The entire point of this exercise is _not_ to die, thank you very much."

"Then why don't you stop supervising? We can yell if we need you, and you wouldn't want any of the orange juice splashing you."

"Anaphylactic shock, incidentally, is not funny. Fine. But taste the icing before you put anything on." He sighed and put the scroll down on the counter. "Try very, very hard not to get us all killed. Though I suppose it's for the best. I always was miserable at decorating the things."

"Exactly how many cakes have you _made_?"

"I'll be out here if you need me."

Sheppard and Ronon glanced at each other, shrugged, and bent over the recipe scroll.

-

"Now, be very, very careful not to drop it," McKay said, shooting a wary sidewise glance at the cake.

"My god, McKay, where would we be without you?" Sheppard shifted the cake platter in his hands slightly. "Where the hell did that lady go?"

Something about the movement caught McKay's eye, and he looked at the cake more closely. The frosting was pale orange, with a design traced in some sort of black icing (how had they managed that, exactly?) on the top. It was rather intricate, actually-- like a spoked circle, with little rectangular crackers spaced along the edge, like--

"Oh my _god_," said McKay. "You _didn't_. Please, for the love of god, tell me you didn't."

"I had to do _something_!" Sheppard defended. "What's wrong with it?"

"Besides that we're all going to die?"

"It's as good as anything else, damn it!"

"Can't you even take _life-or-death _situations seriously?!"

"I see you have finished the challenge," said the priestess, sitting down at the head of the table that had been laid. "Please present the cake."

Sheppard stepped forward and slid the cake platter onto the table, trying not to notice Teyla praying quietly to herself in the crowd to the right.

"Hmm. An odd design." The priestess blinked down at the cake. "What does this mean?"

"It's a symbol of our patron saint, for luck," McKay snapped. "St. Ferris of Wheel. He's the patron of lost causes, dumb luck, pilots, and idiots."

"He led a complicated life," explained Sheppard, with his most ingratiating grin, shooting a glare at McKay the second the priestess looked away.

"He's particularly important to Col. Sheppard here, given that he is quite clearly an exemplar of all four. I doubt the man would've survived this long without St. Ferris looking out for him."

"I see." The priestess carefully cut a slice, transferred it to a plate, and raised a wooden sporkful to her lips.

"I can't believe I was stupid enough to leave you unattended," McKay muttered, as the priestess chewed thoughtfully.

"Yeah, that was a lapse. You feeling all right?"

"Oh, shut up."

"Well." The priestess set down her spork. "I must say... clearly your saint and our goddess have smiled upon you today."

"So we don't have to die?" McKay said hopefully.

"We all must die, sir, but the goddess has spoken: this is not the transgression you'll die for. This cake is really quite excellent." She cut another slice for the nearest acolyte. "So. You were saying something about a trade agreement?"

"Uh."

"Yes!" said Teyla, recovering astonishingly quickly. "Yes. Yes we were."

"Then let's talk." She gestured casually to the other side of the table, where acolytes were quickly bringing wooden chairs, as if she hadn't been a cake away from killing three of them.

"Does anyone remember what we wanted?" McKay muttered.

"We wanted something?" Ronon muttered back.

Fortunately for all concerned, Teyla remembered.

-

"So!" Elizabeth said, feeling rather cheerful, upon their return. "I take it, since you appear to be alive and unharmed, that the mission went well?"

"Yes, glory be to the ever-generous St. Ferris!" McKay said cheerfully.

"_Rodney_! What the hell was I _supposed_ to do?! It worked!"

"Yes, and whose fault is that, hmm? Who was it who managed to rationalize your freakish obsession to the priestess? Oh, that's right--"

"It is not an obsession, it's just the first thing I could think of, and, again, _why the hell not_?"

"Children!" Teyla smacked them both gently. "Can we not agree that since you two have not managed to settle this disagreement in six hours of bickering, you will never manage to settle it, and all further bickering is pointless?"

"_'Bicker'_?!"

"...This is going to be one of _those_ mission reports, isn't it?" Elizabeth sighed, smiling faintly, not sure whether she should be afraid or just amused. They were easy responses to confuse, in this place.

-

Within a week, someone had taped cards up around the city. They were actually quite pretty; stylized renderings of a robed, haloed figure holding a P-90 and stumbling backward over a rock, with a light that looked suspiciously like a Wraith culling beam on the horizon.

McKay yelled a lot about how he had finally given up on the sanity of anyone in the city when the spoked-wheel pendants started to appear, but he didn't bother to do anything to counteract the movement. Seven months later, they'd realize he had one himself.

"It's no more ridiculous than anything else," was his only excuse.

The few people who'd consciously realized who St. Ferris actually was thought they understood.

-


End file.
